1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to network data management and, more specifically, to a system and method for identifying business critical network and application entities from the collected network data and displaying network data filtered for such identified business critical network and application entities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today's computer networks are extremely complex, with hundreds or more of applications, thousands or more of servers, hundreds or more of locations, hundreds of thousands of clients, and network traffic routed by numerous switches and routers on the computer networks. Different parts of the networks are operated and managed by various individuals and groups within an organization. Thus, it is extremely difficult to understand interdependencies between network elements, applications, and servers and to obtain a complete overview of the network. It is also difficult to understand application traffic flows and access patterns and to identify key servers that keep the business running.
Conventional solutions to managing such complex networks are to have devices that actively probe routers, switches, and nodes on the network for applications to create a network map. However, the network maps created by such conventional solutions are very large, complex, and difficult to understand for large networks. The conventional network maps may provide details about node locations, but fail to identify the business critical network nodes that have a significant impact on the network. In addition, such conventional network maps also fail to detect behavioral trends of the network over a period of time with respect to specific measures such as throughput, access pattern, and response times. Such drawbacks of the conventional solutions present a significant challenge to a network manager who needs to understand the structure of the network and solve various problems that may occur in the network.
Therefore, there is a need for a technique for identifying business critical network and application entities based on network data collected from the network. There is also a need for a technique for effectively displaying network data based upon the identified critical network and application entities, so that a network manager may effectively manage the network.